


expelled from the academies for crazy, and publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull

by Wolvesandwerewolves



Series: I’m With You in Rockland [4]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Bugs and Insects, Gen, Hallucinations, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mental Illness, Mental Instability, Mentioned suicide attempts, Schizophrenia, Schizophrenia/Schizoaffective Disorder, mentions of self harm, mild gore and blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:07:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25773337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolvesandwerewolves/pseuds/Wolvesandwerewolves
Summary: It’s been almost a year since Ben died. It’s September, now.Klaus contemplates. Fall is always his least favorite season.
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves
Series: I’m With You in Rockland [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1865728
Comments: 17
Kudos: 201





	expelled from the academies for crazy, and publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull

**Author's Note:**

> What’s up guys. i am letting you know now...next chapter will probably not be good...i am trying to include more Vanya bc I love her but its so hard to write her. I am seriously struggling. It’s either going to be a short Vanya pov chapter or it’s gonna skip straight to bens pov and then maybe have a Vanya and Ben moment that literally...only Ben is aware of...I’m trying okay 
> 
> Anyways as always. Go read Howl by Allen Ginsberg 
> 
> this fic is sponsored by the wine i had with friends as well as insomnia  
> Edit: wow my word count for this one really plummeted didn’t it. whoops

September isn’t a good month for him. 

It’s too close to October. It’s too close to his birthday, and too close to Halloween, and too close to the anniversaries of his first suicide attempt, and his early psychotic breaks.

It’s too much.

Sometimes Klaus wishes he was still a drug addict. Early in the morning, when it’s still so dark out and almost like night, when he and Ben walk home from work, he imagines himself stopping by the broken down streets and trashy motels he used to frequent. He imagines himself using whatever cash he has to buy as much ambien as he can. He imagines himself overdosing, and sleeping through the entire two months until November again, when the air is colder and easier to breathe.

Ben would tell him that’s a coma, not a nap, and that he’s being ridiculous. And Vanya would listen quietly and say she hates October, too, and she’s not really a fan of September, either, and then she would play their favorite songs on her violin and daydream about someday leaving this stupid city. 

They would, but Klaus hasn’t told them about it. Either of them. He can’t. 

Especially since he’s not entirely sure Ben is always a hallucination. He thinks if he told his psychiatrist about it, about how he thinks Ben is maybe telling the truth about being a ghost, she would say he’s falling into his delusions again, and try to change his medication and increase his therapy sessions.

Maybe she would be right. 

But his brother has super strength. And his other brother can throw knives that curve to hit a target he can’t see. His sister is capable of making anyone do whatever she wants with just a few spoken words. The brother that has been missing since he was a child could move through space and maybe even time. And the dead brother that haunts him has a portal in his stomach that leads to an alternate universe of monsters and tentacles.

So Klaus comes from a weird family. He thinks it’s probably not out of the realm of possibility.

Maybe Dad lied to him. 

The thought is uncomfortable. It reminds him too much of the last time he went off his pills, when he was convinced his father only fed them to him to control him. He remembers believing his father had hired all of the doctors and nurses in the hospital he was confined to. He remembers refusing his pills and food and even water for fear of them poisoning him. He thought they were trying to kill him, a cruel punishment for disobeying Dad and stopping his medication, a slap on the wrist for finding out the truth. 

The truth was awful. The truth was disembodied voices, sirens whispering his name and asking him to join them. The truth was disfigured bodies and bloodied faces, crying out to him for help. The truth was waking up to bugs crawling on him in the dead of night, the smell of rotting flesh and the metallic taste of blood in his mouth. 

He doesn’t think that’s the truth anymore. Or at least, probably not all of it. If his powers involve summoning the ghosts of insects only he can feel, he doesn’t want them. 

But he thinks some of it was probably real. 

And he’s older, now. He’s not alone. He has Ben. Maybe Klaus can handle it this time. Maybe he’ll be able to tell Vanya about Ben. Maybe she’ll decide to stop her pills, too, and then maybe—well, he doesn’t really know what after that. 

But he’ll never find out if he never moves. Even if his memories scare him, Klaus thinks he has to move past that. He has to find out what the real truth is. For himself, and for Ben, and for Vanya.

“Ben,” Klaus says, as casually and as quietly as he can. He’s standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom, doing his makeup before work. Vanya is in the kitchen, humming as she cooks supper. And Ben is sitting on the toilet, reading _Frankenstein_ again, the only book he has. “Are you real?”

He’s been asking more often, lately. Ben tells him things he’s sure he doesn’t know. He talks about his favorite books that Klaus has never read and when he asks Vanya about it she has never read them, either. He talks about the bookstore he used to work at, and when they go sometimes he leads Klaus around the complicated layout to his favorite genres. He talks about himself and his life before he died, almost one year ago now, if they can make it past the next three months. 

“I’m real,” Ben says, just as softly even though Vanya can’t hear him. He turns the page of his book, but then folds his thumb inside of it and sets it in his lap to look up at him.

Klaus hums and turns back to the mirror. He drags a black eyeliner pencil along his waterline, smudges it with his ring finger. He curls his eyelashes and coats them with mascara. Then he sets the tube down on the sink again, and looks over at his brother.

“What’s something I wouldn’t know?”

Ben frowns. “Let me think,” he says, shoving the book back in his sweatshirt pocket. He folds his arms across his chest. He’s quiet for a few seconds, staring off into space as he thinks. “Did you know Ernest Hemingway survived two plane crashes?”

“Who?”

“He was an author. He wrote _A Farewell to Arms_ , and _The Old Man and the Sea_.”

“Okay,” Klaus says. He nods. 

He doesn’t think he knew that. 

He nods to himself again, makes a decision in the safe quiet of his mind. He’ll tell Ben tonight. But Vanya can’t know. He doesn’t want to scare her. 

It was the first week of September the last time he stopped taking his pills, too. 

**Author's Note:**

> sup fam. I suck at replying to comments but I read each and every one multiple times and i love all of you, we’re friends now 
> 
> cool so I am going to bed bc it is practically morning now and haha I work...in the morning. yikes  
> Pls lmk your thoughts...about the next chapter...i am kind of leaning towards ben’s POV bc for some reason writing men is so much easier. and as a cis girl i do no understand. but I am very lazy and so like whatever’s easy amiright


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